Titanfall is an upcoming and massively anticipated multi-platform first person shooter, action video game that is currently being developed by Respawn Entertainment (formerly Call of Duty franchise) and is set to be published by Electronic Arts [EA] (Dead Space series, Dragon Age series and Mass Effect series). Titanfall is being developed and published as an exclusive for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and the Xbox One.

Despite not yet being available for purchase yet, Titanfall has won in excess of 60 awards since being revealed at E3 2013 during the Microsoft press conference. These awards range from (a record breaking) E3 Critics Awards to “Best of Show” award from numerous media outlets. This was extended further when Titanfall continued to claim awards at Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show in 2013.

Development

The development cycle for Titanfall’s pre-production period began in 2011, but the series of events behind its creation stem from a legal dispute when Activision fired the co founder of Infinity Ward (Jason West and Vince Zampella) for “breaches of contract and insubordination” in March of 2010. Their firing later caused a number of lawsuits and staff departures. Later in 2010, Jason West and Vince Zampella founded a new independent video game development company named Respawn Entertainment.

This newly formed studio was then staffed with many of the employees who left Infinity Ward. It was around this time that the pre-production stage of development began, during this period Titanfall was planned for (what was at the time) current generation consoles. But this plan was scrapped in favour of taking the already existing property to the next level,(the decision was also partially rooted in the decision to work with stronger technology rather than work to fit the limitations of the 7th generation of consoles).

“(Moving to next-gen) was a great excuse to take what we had started with and push it a little further,” the developers revealed. The idea behind the mech suits that players will make frequent use of, came from both a great deal of internal debate and artists experimenting with “kitbashing” (a process involving multiple real plastic model kits having their parts interchanged to create a new and unique item), one staff member has been quoted as saying “We started off with a human-sized suit, and then the designers started going into ideas of going bigger, and asking ‘what if we could take cover around buildings and stuff.’ I took (a) plastic model kit and threw a little guy in there and said ‘let’s try this.’…”.

With this in mind it’s easy to recognize the inspirations drawn from the 1982 Harrison Ford film, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Abrams Battle Tank (the Sega Megadrive game) and the mangaka who famously created the “Ghost in the Shell” anime. As the game progressed deeper into the stages of development, two of the project leads departed from Respawn Entertainment to begin their own studio in 2012, with Jason West retiring in march of 2013. it was confirmed in January of 2014 that part of the development process (specifically the Xbox 360 build of the game) was being developed externally by Bluepoint Games, Inc with assistance from the Respawn Entertainment staff.

Soon after, Electronic Arts Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen announced that Titanfall would remain exclusive to Microsoft “for the life of the title”, meaning that PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Wii U will never receive a port. Despite this on February 4th 2014, Vince Zampella commented via Twitter (in response to “@Dag Cerberus” also known as Titanfall Fanboy”) that Respawn Entertainment were discussing a port to OS X some time after launch, thus invalidating the Microsoft exclusivity claim.

Gameplay

Titanfall is a purely online multiplayer first person shooter without a single player campaign. The game instead compensates for this by including doses of plot, character speech and NPC character development in the matches that the player takes part in. Combat is a fast moving procession of PVP (player vs player) that is divided into teams. These two opposing teams must complete a series of team based objectives to achieve victory. To this end, players will primarily play as “Pilots” who can traverse the terrain at a fast pace thanks to their free running inspired ability (an example would be wall running mixed with consecutive jumps to gain both distance and altitude without ever touching the ground).

Pilots can then interface with mech styled walker suits called “Titans”, large and agile mechanical suits of armour that are extremely agile and just as capable in a combat situation thanks to their varied array of weapons and abilities such as being able to trap incoming metallic projectiles in a magnetic field and fire them back at the foe in a field of shrapnel. Pilots are divided into types, with each bringing a unique weapon or skillset to the battle field. The Pilots and their abilities to gather momentum, chain their jumps and wall run obviously give them a great degree of agility which allows them to not only out manoeuvre lesser skilled players, it also adds a great deal of tactical thinking to the game.

Players are no longer confined to shooting gallery-esque corridors and streets, they can now plummet through holes in ceilings, leap through windows as well as potentially hijack vulnerable Titans. Titans (though fast in their own right) are somewhat more limited due to their size, but the varying abilities offered by using a Titan tactically outweigh any potential limitations due to their large and easily spotted nature. Baiting opponents with Titans for ambushes is expected to become a tactic according to forum users. Titans can be evacuated and put into a guard mode where they will follow predetermined orders such as protect an area or tail their Pilot.

Story

There are no details surrounding the plot of Titanfall or the characters therein. There is however a focus on The Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) [the Mega-corp that manufactures Titans) and The Milita, opposer’s of the IMC and acting citizen army of the Frontier Systems that are set to be exploited by the IMC who will (if necessary to further their goals) apply force to the more resistant peoples of the frontier.

Titans

Thus far, only three class of Titan has been unveiled by Respawn Entertainment.